"It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from going under." -- Grandmaster Flash

Saturday, January 13, 2007

I Have a Dream

Let me say first that I love the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Without him, I don't know where our people would be today. I've read about his life more times than I care to remember, wrote school reports about him and had to memorize some of his famous speeches.

So please forgive me when I say: I HATE MLK DAY.

I'm glad I got that off my chest. Every time January rolls around, my stomach fills with dread. In my community, they do up the MLK holiday in style. On Friday, there's an MLK dinner where the local NAACP branch gives out some awards. The day of the actual holiday, that Monday, the community college has a breakfast and gives out even more awards.

My company is pretty active in the community, particularly with these organizations that do the dinner and the breakfast. Each year it's always the same. All the top supervisors get in a huddle and talk about who should represent the company at these events. They look around the room and since my face is the only brown one they see, they choose me. Sigh.

This year, my task was to go to the Friday dinner, which was yesterday. It was no big deal, since I also attended last year. I was excited this time because I actually had work to do, instead of sitting around and just be black, like I had to do last time. Yay!

When I get there, I have to join these two other women at their table. Our seat in the catering hall is near two tables filled with Little Bastards, but that was my only seating option. Naturally, once the program got started, we couldn't hear the speaker. All we heard was: "Stop!" "Give it back," "It's mine!" "Bitch, I'll kick your ass." Yeah, it was that kind of night. When the emcee held a moment of silence for the good Rev. King, a woman at my table turned to the Little Bastards and screamed "I WANT ALL YA'LL TO SHUT UP. DON'T MAKE ME COME BACK THERE!"

The highlight of the evening came when the woman sitting next to me started talking about her new diet. Apparently, it had been working for her and she lost 65 pounds. All she did was eat five small meals a day, walked a lot and drank nothing but water. Everyone congratulated her, until another woman (the one who shouted at the kids) said she had a better dieting option. "Ya'll remember when you saw me that time years ago and I was all skinny? Everybody was asking, 'what's your secret?' 'how'd you lose that weight?' You know what I said?"

We all looked at her. "What?"

"Crack." She started laughing. "But that was back when I was out there. Thank God I ain't like that no more."